


i prayed my mind be good to me

by valiantprincex



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Animal Death, Gen, Helena in general..., Mental Torture, Warnings: scorpions, claustrophobic scenes, oopsie, rated M bc of these warnings idk, self harm mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 14:24:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3385055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valiantprincex/pseuds/valiantprincex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Speculative fic for OB season 3. Caution for #obspoilers, but mostly speculation on my part. *shrug*<br/>Inspired by <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2004/09/how_deadly_are_scorpions.html">this article. </a></p><p>They put her in a box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i prayed my mind be good to me

They put her in a box.

They put her in the box but first they–

First it’s her clothes, they pull her coat off her still-fighting limbs and throw it – far – to the floor like garbage. It still smells like Sarah, Sarah’s house (like home, like safe, like temperance maybe) and it is gone. The clothes they give her smell like bleach and new-ness, like nothing, an unmaking.

The thin cloth rasps against her back as she pulls it on, and she feels the hurt like absence. Her skin still feels like Sarah’s, still, still, like peoplewarmth, like touching and Sarahskin on her skin and two together, still. She wraps her arms around herself, as far as the clicking shackles will stretch, like this could replace the feel of Sarah’s breathing in the bed above her or the rise-fall of Sarah’s chest in the dark.  

–take.

And Helena can’t feel Sarah on her skin anymore, she can’t, she just feels cold and dead and thinks she could be rotting inside.

They put her in the box and their eyes glitter and she spits at them, tastes blood in it, wishes it were theirs. At first it’s fine – it’s cold and dark and too much like a cage(like a memory), and her skin still throbs from their blows but maybe it’s healing in this dark, without fists and boots snapping toward her like hungry snakes. She holds herself tighter there, maybe to convince herself she was still there, in the dark, and not some dead thing in nothingness. Maybe to try and remember the feeling of another’s(Sarah) breath so close to her’s or another’s(Sarah) skin warm and alive and shivering or another(Sarah) next to her in the warmth of the womb, dark, safe, warm.

She feels the first one on her neck.

A small  _scritch scritch_  of pinpricks on fresh-healed scars. Helena’s hand flinches up, flicks it off, her ears catching the faint sound of it hitting the ground. Her finger throbs where she touched it and she sticks it in her mouth, one spark of heat in a frozen wasteland.

The second – or the first again, she doesn't know – crawls up her leg while she sleeps(hard to sleep here, or easy, close-eyes-open the same, all the same). Helena wakes to am itching on her knee, and when she swats at it she hears a crunch, her hand comes away wet and sticky.

And throbbing. But – nevermind nevermind – because her hand tingles and it feels like death, which she isn't supposed to do anymore because Sarah told her not to.  _(Where is she now,_ a voice slithers in her ear _, where is your sister now_ ) And Sarah told her not to, which means it is a sin to do, and her hand hurts and this is good.

The third crawls over her foot and up her limp arm; she can feel it twitching on her skin and Helena doesn’t move, for fear of hurting doesn’t move, stays still as it crawls over her skin.

The fourth she wakes to find sitting gently on her eyelids and she keeps them closed – doesn’t matter anyhow – and tries not to breathe.

The fifth – fourth – fifth – fourth? It rests under her fingers and she freezes, doesn’t move, stays still as stone.

And they are

They are

they are

everywhere.

Helena can feel them crawling on her feet, under her curled up legs and over her fingers, up-down her back and over the mountain range of scars there, over her clothes and under and they are.

Everywhere.

And she can’t breathe without crushing one-two-five anymore, and when they die her body hurts like a confession. And they keep dying, and her skin is sticky with them and they keep dying and hurting her.

She can’t breathe either, worry she’d inhale them, cause them to move. She holds her breath until she can’t anymore and then she breathes and hurts and holds her breath again.

Helena wants to remember Sarah’;s voice but she can’t, anymore, her skin is rotting and cold and Sarah is a memory, here, Sarah is a memory and she is. Not here.

( _Won’t come and save you will she will she she won’t come and_ )

It feels like an ache, like an ache on fire and everywhere, and Helena hears someone screaming.

The box is closed.

She can't breathe they will crawl-down-her-throat she is hungry, when has she last eaten she is hungry she they are all over her, she can not tell what is living anymore and what is and she hears someone screaming.

She can remember Sarah screaming but this scream is not-the-same, and the box is closed. And she doesn't remember what Sarah’s skin feels-like-felt-like, just dead and dying things and pain.

And.

Screaming.

Not-hers, because it is unlike Sarah’s and they are the same, except Sarah is not inabox, Sarah is.

( _Won’t save you she won’t Sarah won’t save you will she will she_ )

Sarah.

The word tastes like poison and sweetness on her tongue and since when was she shouting? Sarah.

Sarah.

Helena forms her name like a lifeline, weaving ropes from a chant that seems much more like ripping. Sarah. The box is closed and dark and cold and Helena is inthebox, unless she is dead and her skin is rotting right-that-would-be, Sarah.

Sarah.

 _Sarah_.

Her skin  _Sarah_  doesn’t feel like skin anymore and Helena _Sarah_  can’t tell if her eyes are open or shut, any _Sarah_ more, nomatteranyhowreally, and _Sarah_  the box is.

Closed.

She thinks her skin is gone, and they are crawling inside her maybe, clawing at her insides and ripping, and hurting.

Maybe.

Sarah.

Sa–

it’s s-so cold and she is hungry, and they are on her and she can’t breathe she cannotbreathe and there is screaming, not-Sarah’s, hers?

They are the same they are not the same Sarah is not in the box Sarah is not saving her Sarah is elsewhere with her sisters and they are not the same and someone is screaming.

* * *

 

The screen flickers slightly, black and white shapes unmoving on the center of it. The man watching flicks a remote and the angle changes, slipping crawling things like mere specs on the screen.

“Isn’t this enough.”

He turns, flashes a slow grin to the man standing behind him. Holds up a single jar with one skittering creature held within.

“If she doesn’t break in the next ten hours,” he rattles the jar and the creature flicks it’s long, pointed tail. He sets it down and it shivers, shakes it’s tan-translucent body and it’s tail curves, the tip glinting in the light.

**Author's Note:**

> "I raised myself.  
> My legs were weak.  
> I prayed my mind be good to me.
> 
> An awful noise  
> Filled the air.  
> I heard a scream  
> In the woods somewhere."
> 
> \--In the woods somewhere, Hozier
> 
> Note: the scorpion at the end is the [Arizona Bark Scorpion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_bark_scorpion), which is consistently ranked as very, very painful, and also deadly but won't kill you instantly. The ones in with Helena during most of the fic are the not-deadly ones, [of all scorpion species only 25 ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion#Sting_and_venom)have been known to be able to kill people. 
> 
> Also: Im not an expert
> 
> if you liked, a kudo and/or comment would make my day!


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